Missionaries Abroad

The total of Americans serving abroad as mis sionaries has never been as great as in 1966. Almost five sixths are Protestants. An increasing proportion are Roman Catholics. The Communist control has expelled American missionaries from the mainland of China and North Korea, but, with these exceptions, they are in most countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and in Madagascar and the major ity of islands in the Pacific and off the southeast coast of Asia. In most of these regions, the Christian communities which they serve are growing both in numbers and in indigenous leadership. In numerous other ways—medicine and health, education, and agriculture, for example—American mission aries are having an effect on the cultures of the peoples among whom they live. Because of the multiplication of Americans abroad in other occupations, missionaries now constitute a smaller proportion of their countrymen in other lands than in the interval between the two world wars. But they continue to be highly significant.—Ed.